Top Click Offers AEO as an SEO Add-On or a Standalone AI Visibility Audit

A growing share of buyers now put their questions to an AI tool, read the recommendation it gives and act on it, often without visiting a search results page at all. Top Click, the South African search agency, is setting out this October how businesses can respond, with two clear starting points for its answer engine optimisation service: as an add-on for brands that already run SEO with the agency, or through a standalone AI Visibility Audit for brands that are coming to it new.

The two routes reflect a view the agency holds firmly. Answer engine optimisation, often shortened to AEO and also described as AI search optimisation or GEO, is not a shortcut around SEO. It is built on top of it. A brand with a weak search foundation will struggle to be recommended by AI tools no matter how much AI-specific work is done, so where a brand starts depends on what is already in place.

Why the question is on the table now

For South African businesses, the last quarter of the year is when many buyers research larger purchases, and spring brings a lift in activity across many categories. More of that research now happens inside ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode. A buyer asks for the best supplier in a category, gets a short answer that names a handful of brands, and moves on. A business that is not named in that answer is not in the running for that buyer.

Top Click's AEO page puts it simply: buyers ask, get a recommendation and act. The work of AEO is to make a brand harder for those tools to overlook.

Route one: AEO on top of an existing SEO retainer

For clients already on an SEO retainer with Top Click, AEO is offered as an add-on. Because the agency has already worked on the site's technical health, content and authority, AEO sits on that existing foundation. The add-on is scoped after an audit and priced as an uplift on the client's current retainer rather than as a separate programme.

This is the route the agency's own case material supports. Its AEO page describes work for SunNinja, an international beach tent brand, where deep on-site SEO across pages, collections, products and blog content, combined with real backlinks and digital PR, took the brand to the top organic position on Google for "beach tents" and to the top of Google AI Mode, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity and Grok for the same category. The agency describes that result as the product of traditional SEO done thoroughly, rather than any special trick.

Route two: the standalone AI Visibility Audit

Brands that are new to Top Click start with a standalone AI Visibility Audit. The audit shows where a brand currently appears, or fails to appear, across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews, and benchmarks that position against competitors. If the audit finds that the brand's search foundation is sound, it can convert into a full retainer. If the foundation needs work first, the brand knows that before committing to anything larger.

For a business weighing AI SEO services for the first time, the audit gives a fact-based starting point rather than a sales promise.

What AEO covers

Top Click describes AEO as working on three things. The first is what people say about a brand, including mentions on Reddit, forums, review sites and industry press, which AI tools read even when there is no link back to the brand's website. The second is how clearly AI understands who the brand is: its name, what it does and why it is credible, stated the same way everywhere. The third is whether the brand's content gives a straight answer that an AI tool can lift directly from the page.

In practice, the service is made up of eight parts. An AI visibility audit establishes the starting point. Prompt and share-of-voice tracking follows the exact questions buyers ask AI tools and how often the brand is named against competitors. Entity optimisation covers schema, knowledge panel signals and consistent brand data. Answer-first content rewrites priority pages so the answer is not buried in the fourth paragraph. FAQ sections and structured data help AI tools read and extract information. Technical AI access makes sure AI crawlers can reach the site, including an llms.txt file. Citation and digital PR work earns mentions on the platforms AI tools trust most. Monthly reporting tracks the results.

How progress is measured

The agency reports on four measures: citation frequency, meaning how often AI tools name the brand when relevant questions are asked; share of voice against competitors in AI answers; AI referral traffic, tracked in GA4 separately from organic search; and sentiment, meaning how AI tools describe the brand and whether that description is accurate. Top Click notes that these measurement tools are newer and still evolving compared with the mature tools available for traditional rankings and traffic, and it says it tells clients plainly about anything that cannot yet be measured.

What the agency will not promise

Top Click is explicit that nobody can control what an AI engine decides to cite, and it does not guarantee that a brand will appear in ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. What it commits to is the proven work that improves the odds, with monthly reporting to show what was done. It gives early signals a timeframe of 60 to 120 days, with competitive categories taking longer, and it describes AEO as ongoing work rather than a one-off project, because AI search changes quickly.

Built on 18 years of search work

The agency's case for being the AEO agency that South African brands trust with this work rests on its history. Top Click has worked only in SEO and Google Ads for 18 years and is an established Google Premier Partner. Its accounts are handled by senior specialists with no juniors, and clients are engaged month to month with no long-term contract. Its position is that a brand needs both SEO and AEO, and that anyone who says otherwise should be treated with caution.

Brands that want to know which of the two routes suits them can read the full service details at https://topclick.co.za/aeo/.

About Top Click

Top Click is a specialist South African digital marketing agency that works only in search, covering SEO, Google Ads and answer engine optimisation. The agency has operated for 18 years and is an established Google Premier Partner. Its AEO service helps brands get recommended on ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity, Copilot, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode. Work is handled by a small team of senior specialists, and clients are engaged on month-to-month terms with no lock-in.

Media Contact
Top Click
Email: info@topclick.co.za
Phone: +27 11 440 6268
Website: https://topclick.co.za/